


Tower Tales

by kitkat1003



Series: Animaniac Attack [1]
Category: Animaniacs
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mentions of Death, Morbid thoughts, So much angst, Tags will update with fic, exploration of toon abilities, hey these kids got trapped in a water tower for 60 ish years can we talk about that, im newly obsessed sue me, mentions to period typical sexism, no one is dying is this fic so help me god, who framed roger rabbit toon rules
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27752974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitkat1003/pseuds/kitkat1003
Summary: What ever happened in those 60 ish years before the show started?
Relationships: Dot Warner & Wakko Warner & Yakko Warner
Series: Animaniac Attack [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030104
Comments: 138
Kudos: 900





	1. A Painful Realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1: Wakko has Hypoglycemia. He knows this, but how?

The water tower is dark. They really only know how to make mallets, at the moment, because nothing is funnier than a well timed slam of one on top someone’s head. There are some visual gags, too, that they can do, but they’re young, not even a year old, so they ate at the mess hall with all the other new toons, or toons who don’t feel the need to make their own. They can’t prepare food themselves, much less make it appear.

“It’s dark in here,” Dot says, and her voice echoes. The water tower is woefully empty, and they’ve been in the place for about a couple days. It’s a really funny joke, Yakko thinks. Locking them up in here, for _all time?_ Man, this prank is really something. He hopes the punchline hits soon, though, because his eyes miss sunlight. They’ve adjusted to the darkness enough that they can see each other, can see the walls full of rivets and the looming door they can’t open- _they haven’t really tried yet, though, because they want to see how this joke lands_ -but it’s still annoying.

“Yeah, but think about it, Dot. When they open that door, we can pretend that our eyes have melted from the sun. Classic, right?” Yakko jokes, and Dot giggles. Success!

“Right,” She smiles, cheered up for the time being. Wakko snickers from up in the rafters, having climbed up there to relieve some boredom. Also, to hopefully find something to eat. Technically they don’t have to eat, being cartoons and all, but Wakko likes it more than most. Yakko can hear him chowing down on the steel beams up near the top of the tower.

“Hey, save some of that for the rest of us!” he jokes, and he _swears_ he can hear Wakko roll his eyes. Wakko hops down a second later, however, bouncing off of the metal floor as if it were a trampoline. The floor shakes a little, and Yakko and Dot bounce themselves until it settles.

“I’m still hungry,” Wakko grumbles, crossing his arms. Even though he has the best grasp on the whole gag bag situation, more so than Dot and Yakko himself, he can’t make food either, something he hasn’t stopped grumbling about.

“It’ll pass. You’re just used to being able to eat all the time, so now your body thinks it’s meal time 24/7,” Dot waves a hand, and Yakko nods in agreement.

“Exactly. Now, I know we don’t have a circadian rhythm going with all this no sun business, but I think it’s about bedtime anyway. Alright?” Wakko and Dot both groan.

“ _Fine_ ,” they say in unison.

They cuddle up together, Yakko in the middle with Dot and Wakko on either side of him. They don’t know how to make beds yet, but sleeping together makes the fact that they’re sleeping on solid steel floors seem not so bad.

Yakko hopes this joke ends soon, though. He misses having a blanket.

* * *

A week passes. Two, then four, and soon they’re approaching six. Wakko slowly but surely eats away the steel beams until there’s nothing left. He stops complaining, at least, but Yakko can see him occasionally grab his stomach and frown, like he’s in pain.

It’s weird. Shouldn’t Wakko’s body know by now that it doesn’t need food? Yakko doesn’t get it. He doesn’t mind, though, because the joke _has_ to be over soon, so they’ll be let out and Wakko will be able to eat to his heart- _or his stomach_ -’s content. After all, with how uptight those execs were, Yakko can’t imagine them spending anymore time on this whole thing.

They’ve managed to make a light at this point, a little match that Dot set on the floor. It never seems to burn out, which is nice, and it illuminates the small, yet infinitely large container they’ve been placed in.

“Yakko?” Wakko’s voice calls, and it sounds weaker than Yakko is used to. He stops mid pace and turns, brow furrowed.

“What’s up, sib?”

“I don’t feel too good,” Wakko mumbles, and Yakko swears his skin is more gray than it is black. Could be the lighting, but…

“Maybe take a nap, huh bud? You’re looking a bit tired,” Yakko suggests, and Wakko shrugs, walking over to their designated sleeping place. He curls into a ball, and pulls off his hat to use a pillow, before falling into a fitful sleep.

“I’m worried about him,” Dot says, tearing Yakko’s gaze from his sleeping sibling. “He seems more tired lately. What if something’s wrong?” She looks up at him, and Yakko knows he’s the oldest, but he’s just as lost as she is.

But he smiles anyway, and lies through his teeth.

“He’s probably just getting cabin fever or something. It’s pretty dull in here, his brain’s probably too bored to function,” He shrugs, and Dot giggles again. Yakko decides to make sure the world hears that sound often.

“Hard to bore something that doesn’t exist,” She responds, and Yakko laughs, before they settle into somewhat relative silence.

* * *

Yakko doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but he wakes up to Dot screaming his name.

“Yakko! Something’s wrong with Wakko!” She screams, and there’s real terror there, and _that_ gets him up on his feet in a second, eyes searching for his brother.

He finds him twitching and kicking on the ground, unresponsive to Dot’s shouts.

“He just started doing that a minute ago! He stopped for a few seconds, but then he started up again! I don’t know what’s wrong!” Dot has tears in her eyes, and Yakko decided that, while the punchline will be missed, jokes are far less important than getting Wakko to safety.

He runs over to the door, banging on it.

“Hello! We need a doctor! I get you wanted to pull a prank, but Wakko needs medical attention! Let us out!” he pulls out his mallet and bangs on the door, hard. It doesn’t budge. He hits it harder, still shouting at the top of his lungs, calling for someone to help.

“Somebody! Help! Jokes’s over, we need help! _Let us out!_ ”

He shouts himself hoarse, and when he stops to take a breath, he listens.

He doesn’t hear anyone coming. There’s no one on their way-he doesn’t even hear someone saying that they’re going to help. It’s like they’re being _completely ignored._

_But **that** would mean…_

“Yakko?” Dot’s voice is small, and she looks even smaller when he turns around to look at her, as she kneels next to Wakko. “I don’t think this is a joke at all. If it is, it isn’t funny anymore.”

And Yakko-he-he just _stares._ Because suddenly he remembers how happy everyone was when they were thrown into here. How _excited._ It was that excitement that made Yakko expect a joke, thinking of a punchline. He thought the sound of industrial drills nailing the door shut was a nice touch to really sell it, but that was _real._ This isn’t funny, it isn’t a joke, the whole world _hated_ them _so much_ that they _locked them away,_ and now his brother is going to _die,_ and _nobody cares_ but himself and Dot.

How is that-how could that even be possible? How could the world they were born into be so cruel?

It’s enough to tear him to pieces, but Wakko goes limp, and Dot starts to cry, and Yakko takes deep breath.

Doesn’t matter how he feels. Not now, That despair will be reserved for when his siblings are safe asleep, where he can cry and glare at the door and the world with a fury and hurt too much for him to bear.

He turns around, staring at Wakko’s still form with something akin to panic and grief, and thinks about something. What’s a gag food, what’s the best thing to use-

“Dot, hit me with a pie!” he says, and Dot stares at him like he’s grown two heads.

“ _What?_ ”

“We can’t make anything unless there’s a funny reason for it!” He says. “Mallets are always funny, that’s our baseline. But just making food isn’t funny. But hitting me with a pie _is!_ ” He can see when it dawns on her, and he gestures to his face.

“Now, _hit me!_ ”

The pie hits him harder than he expected, and the cream splatters everywhere, but that doesn’t matter. He grabs the broken pieces and scrambles to Wakko’s side. 

“The doctor has ordered 80ccs of pie!” he manages, to lighten the mood, and he forces mouthfuls of it down Wakko’s throat, desperately hoping.

The pie disappears in under a minute, but still Wakko seems too pale. Yakko frowns, then turns to Dot.

“Again!”

* * *

It’s about two hours later when Wakko wakes, and the moment he does he’s swept up into a hug.

“What happened?” he asks, scratching his head in confusion. He seems lucid, seems fine despite the terror his apparent illness made, and Yakko goes weak with relief, leaving Dot to reply.

“You got really sick! It was scary-you passed out, and we had to force feed you food, and no one came to help,” she says in a rush, and Wakko looks to Yakko for an explanation.

“Turns out you do have to eat. Go figure,” Yakko smiles, but it looks brittle, and both of his siblings can see it. He isn’t good enough to fool them yet. “And, uh, turns out they really did want us out of their hair. The door is shut tight,” He shrugs.

“Oh,” Wakko manages to reply, and the crushing weight of that knowledge is easily seen in his eyes, and Yakko hates himself for putting it there. “Hey, how’d you get me something to eat anyway?”

He gets a pie to the face in lieu of a reply.

That night, when Wakko and Dot are asleep, Yakko stares up at the ceiling. He doesn’t know how long forever is. He doesn’t know how they’re going to make it. He doesn’t understand the callousness it takes to lock someone away for all of eternity.

He doesn’t know if he wants to.

Despite it all, he knows that if they’re going to be stuck here, they need to make this hospitable. He can see some beds-he’ll have to figure out how to make one.

Dot shifts, next to him, searching for Wakko’s hand. They meet in the middle of Yakko’s chest, and she holds it there gently. Yakko smiles.

 _They’ll_ figure it out. He’ll make sure of it.

* * *

Hypoglycemia is extremely rare in those who do not already have diabetes. Here is one of the reasons it could occur.

**Critical Illness:**

“Severe liver illnesses such as severe hepatitis or cirrhosis can cause hypoglycemia. Kidney disorders, which can keep your body from properly excreting medications, can affect glucose levels due to a buildup of those medications.

 ** _Long-term starvation, as can occur in the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, can result in too little of substances your body needs to create glucose_**.”


	2. Aftermath of an Ordeal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2: The world doesn’t want them. If Scratchy was a competent therapist, he might ask “How does that make you feel?”
> 
> Or: Wakko Almost Died, and they’ve got issues about it

Yakko doesn’t know anger.

Not well. He doesn’t lose his temper often, doesn’t find himself raging over little things, but this.

This makes him _furious_.

It settles in his chest and _burns_ and he wants to scream, but there’s no private place to do it. Wakko and Dot would hear, and the last thing he needs is their concern. They’re in the same boat, they feel the same as him, he knows they’re hurting too.

The world abandoned them, left them for dead, and they’re just _kids._ They don’t know what to do here.

Yakko has managed, in the few months- _3 and half, 3 and half months and it feels like an eternity_ \- they’ve been trapped here, to figure out how to make things, objects, beds. Wakko makes them better, actually, and Yakko is proud, but a part of him wonders if he’s even _useful,_ then.

He has his words, he supposes. He can soothe and snark and crack jokes with ease, lifting the heavy air that seems to swallow them whole any time they look towards the bolted shut door.

Yakko already has plans. He can figure them a way out of here. They can make a door, or use heat to melt the metal, or any sort of avenue in that regard. He just needs to get the ability. And, once they’re out, they can wreak havoc. He’s sure a parent would have told him that **_Revenge_** isn’t a worthy pursuit, but he doesn’t _have_ a parent, does he?

_~~And any facsimile thereof was fine with getting rid of them, so who needs parents anyway?~~ _

They’ve made themselves a bed-at first, they’d considered a bunk, but the idea of not having each other close enough to touch makes them all more uncomfortable than they’re willing to admit, so they decide on a King Size bed instead.

God, Yakko missed blankets and a mattress.

At night, he slips out from beneath the covers, ruffling Wakko’s hair and planting a kiss on Dot’s forehead. He heads to the farthest end of the tower from the bed and runs a hand down his face and sighs.

It’s funny to cry comically loud, but Yakko doesn’t want to wake up his sibs, so he learns to be quiet as hot, angry, hurt tears fall down his face. He wants to rage and scream, he wants to tear the world to pieces word by word, but that is isn’t funny. So he swallows it down like a bitter pill and learns how painful it can be to be _mature._

He swears, _when_ he gets them out of here, it’ll be for good. His family deserves that much, at least.

_He doesn’t think **he** deserves it, though. Not that he’ll say. He let the world trap the 3 of them in here, he **let this happen**. Why does he deserve to see the sun again?_

* * *

Wakko doesn’t feel the fear of almost dying until a few days after he almost does.

They have a food stash now. Yakko is insistent, as Wakko learns how to make food appear, that they have extra just in case. What if Wakko loses the ability, what if he’s too tired, too weak. What if Yakko and Dot aren’t there to help?

_The last excuse is so weak that Wakko hardly acknowledges it, because there’s no way Dot or Yakko wouldn’t be there for him._

_~~Unless they got tired of him. A toon that needs to eat? Pathetic right?~~ _

Wakko knows what he’s doing, anyway. He can make other types of food now, instead of just pie. He doesn’t need to be babied, doesn’t need to be take care of like he’s too young to take care of himself. 

He expects Dot to temper Yakko’s mother-henning, but she’s uncharacteristically silent on the matter. She even starts following him around, practically dragging him to get food when she thinks he hasn’t eaten enough in a day.

Wakko feels the fear of almost dying in the night, when he’s supposed to be falling asleep. He stares up at the cold metal walls and ceiling and imagines closing his eyes and never opening them. He doesn’t remember a lot from that day, remembers waking up to his limbs twitching and jerking without him being able to stop them, flashes of consciousness, Dot and Yakko screaming. He doesn’t have a grasp on the timeline, everything fuzzy and unclear, and it adds to the fear. He woke up to the taste of banana cream on his tongue, exhausted and somehow blessedly full, and before he could even say a word he was hugged so tight it hurt.

The explanation he was given makes him wonder. How could he be sure to be safe again? _What if they hadn’t figured it out?_

What would they have done with his _body?_ Would they have moved it to a small spot towards the edge of the tower, backs turned to it day after day as they waited and tried to escape? If they had escaped, would Plotz have been _delighted_ to know that the most physically troublesome of the trio was truly out of his hair?

At least Dot and Yakko can talk their way out of things. Wakko makes messes and has no words to clean them up. It’s kind of pathetic, how dumb and tongue tied he can be, and now he’s not even _physically_ normal, for a toon. Dot and Yakko must think him terribly annoying to take care of.

He imagines himself, still as the grave, the first toon to die of starvation. What a legacy. Dying with only his siblings around him, in a small water tower he was imprisoned in. Imprisoned in because he was a nuisance. And he hardly even _talked_. He got yelled at for eating random stuff, but he was _hungry._ And _clearly_ it was for a reason, considering he almost _died_ because he couldn’t eat because they locked him in here with his siblings to _rot,_ and-

He doesn’t realize he’s trembling until he feels Yakko shift, next to him, disturbed by his movements. Wakko hops out of bed, and heads to their kitchenette. It’s small, but it’s one of the first things they knew they’d need when turning the tower into a home. They moved the food stash in there, in a pantry that says “For Emergencies” on it. He contemplates going through it and leaving it empty, but Yakko already looks like he’s going to get gray hairs. Wakko won’t add to that. He pulls out the milk and pours it into a glass before setting it in the microwave. He starts the timer for a minute and then grabs a sandwich from the mini fridge as he puts the milk jug away.

Good food and drink are always a remedy for terror, right?

When he’s done absolutely demolishing the kitchen, picking the shelves clean of anything edible, he stumbles back to bed, content to ignore his thoughts for a night.

It seems Yakko got up too, at some time. The blanket is ruffled in a specific way.

It’s _funny_ how, despite them getting up at similar times, they never seem to catch each other. Wakko thinks, as he falls asleep, _that’s probably why they never talk about it at all._

* * *

Dot is cute. She knows this. She knew it from the moment she was drawn, that she would be adorable, the absolute most cutest toon in the world, with no contenders to take her spot.

But evidently, being cute doesn’t do much in the world she was made in, because she’s in the same spot as her brother’s, locked in a tower for forever.

She’d started doubting that the whole ‘Lock the Warner Siblings in the Water Tower’ thing was a joke far earlier than Yakko had. Yakko hadn’t wanted to believe the world could be so mean, but she’s a _pretty_ _girl actress_ in _Hollywood_. She knows _exactly_ how disgusting the world can be, just in her first few weeks in it. She’d entertained the idea for a week or so, of it being a joke, but as a month and a half passed she gave up, just a little.

But it wasn’t enough to soften the blow of knowing that Wakko could die without anyone caring besides Yakko and herself.

Yakko had been asleep when it started, but she’d been practicing ballet dances when Wakko’s body began to twitch and jerk without reason, a startled gasp escaping from his lips before he went terrifyingly silent. She’d ran to Wakko’s side, screaming for him, and then for Yakko, because Wakko was so pale he was _light gray_ and he looked so _weak._

And she’d seen his hunger, hadn’t she? Waved it off as if he were just _complaining_ , when he had a genuine problem. But Yakko thought of the solution, Yakko _saved_ him, and she’d only _watched._

Some sister she was.

Yakko institutes changes immediately afterwards, throwing himself into learning how to make objects that they can use to make the Tower a place to live instead of an empty room, and despite the fact that she doesn’t like being told what to do she says nothing, because she’ll do anything to keep that deep terror from gripping her again.

She doesn’t realize it, but she’s being clingy. She hovers. She follows Wakko and frowns when he doesn’t eat for too long-in her opinion. He says he’ll eat when he’s hungry, but that’s not enough. He needs to eat _before_ he’s hungry, so that way he’ll never _be_ hungry, and then he’ll _never_ be that sick again.

_And then she can stop waking up crying, dreaming of a world where Wakko isn’t there at all, just a still body on the metal floor, and Yakko is yelling at her for minimizing, because **she** made it seem less than it was, so it’s **her** fault, and Wakko is **dead** and **it’s her fault** and the corpse turns to dust and he’s **gone** and it’s **her fault-**_

She’s dragging him to the kitchen one day, because he hadn’t eaten for four hours, and her heartbeat is a rapid fire pace in her chest, and he pulls away from her.

“I’m not hungry, Dot. I’ll eat in a bit, promise. What’s your deal?” Wakko is so rarely annoyed at her or Yakko enough to make a fuss, but he clearly is now, and the fear that tightens her chest whirls her around and makes her shout.

“I’m not watching you die again!” She shouts back, and Yakko’s head whips in her direction from the chair he’s sitting in, and Wakko looks stunned. She’s trembling, she realizes, and her vision is blurry from tears. 

Wakko is so, so gentle as he comes close, reaching up to wipe her tears from her eyes.

“I-uh-sorry, Dot, I didn’t mean-,” She pushes his hands away, The last she needs is an _apology_ from him because he almost _died_ , as if that was _his fault._

“No, no, don’t-I just,” She buries her face in her hands. “It was so _scary_ -and-and you act like it _doesn’t matter!_ ” She shouts, fists clenched, and Wakko takes a step back.

“It does-I just-food is hard to get down when I’m not hungry-and,” Yakko places a hand on her shoulder, from behind, and the action makes her jolt and quiets Wakko. She watches him fidgets with the long sleeves of his sweater, anxious, and she hates herself for making him feel so unsure.

“When he’s hungry, it’s his body telling him he needs food, sis,” Yakko’s voice is very soft, and he kneels down to her eye level, talking to her plainly with his eyes looking into hers. “Eating before that time could make him feel sick, and he could throw up what he eats, which would at the very least be unsanitary,” He chuckles to himself a little, and she smiles at the quip, before he continues. “That’s probably why he isn’t eating 24/7 right now. Plus, he was slowly starving himself before then because we didn’t know better,” he says _**we**_ , and she wonders if he knows that she blames herself solely, and is saying that to make her feel better, “so his body isn’t used to having food around. He’ll get his appetite back up. Promise,” Everything he says makes sense, but she’s still terrified.

“But-,” What if that’s not enough? What if he eats too late? What if it happens again?

“ _I’ve_ been making sure he’s eating enough,” Yakko continues, cutting her rebuttal off. “3 meals a day at _least._ I make him breakfast in the morning, when you’re still asleep. I know how much he’s eating, and I’ll make sure it _never_ gets like that again. So, if you’re still worried, just trust _me_ with this, okay?” He smiles, and when he phrases it like that, she can do nothing but agree.

“Okay,” She manages to get out, and Yakko pulls her into a hug. She cries into his shoulder, hiding her face because crying isn’t _cute,_ and he rubs her back, whispering comforting words into her ear.

When he lets go, Wakko pulls her in, and his sweater is very soft. She buries herself into it, and he doesn’t complain about the snot and tears she’s likely getting on it.

“Sorry for worrying you,” he says. “I’ll try to eat more.”

She feels so silly, and so very small, and so very dumb, making her brothers worry like this.

“Don’t make yourself sick,” She lets out a wet giggle, wiping her eyes as Wakko lets her go.

Yakko cooks dinner, and makes her one of her favorites. She watches Wakko eat three times the amount she does, and she feels satisfied.

That night, she doesn’t sleep for a long time. She has too many thoughts in her head. She turns, and she sees Wakko and Yakko, sleeping soundly. Wakko looks healthy, but she can’t forget how he looked then.

She can’t let herself fall apart over this. Yakko worries enough, and Wakko almost died. The last thing they need is an overemotional sister breaking down all the time.

_Maybe that’s why the world let her get locked up. She’s cute, but it doesn’t matter if she’s too over the top. An emotional woman is an unattractive one. There’s nothing cute about crying, after all._

She resolves herself to be better, and the next morning she wakes up to have breakfast with her brothers, and doesn’t let her smile slip an inch.


	3. Let's Have Some Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, they’re not sad all the time, are they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The user AsilandWriting (@asilcorner on tumblr) sent me some ideas for this fic. Give them love! They have a great webcomic @ghostboyscomic on tumblr that I love, and their art is so friggin cute. ANYWAY TO THE FIC

They’ve started drawing up plans. 

For the Tower. Why not put it together better, why not make the space a home now that it has to be? Yakko refuses to let his siblings live in squalor, not when they have the ability to make it better.

Yakko is surprisingly adept at architecture, though Wakko can’t make heads nor tails of it.

“It’s just art with a little math,” Yakko shrugs off Wakko’s incredulous look with a smile, and Wakko frowns.

“I _hate_ math,” He’s never had to do it in a classroom setting, but at this point he’s certain. He lets Yakko continue to try and figure that mess out, idly chewing on his mallet as he glances up at the tall expanse of the tower. 

Yakko’s been thinking about expanding the kitchen and bathroom. Dot says she wants a space for herself, but there doesn’t seem to be room for it between everything else. Yakko tells her this kindly, though they can tell he’s not at all pleased with having to do so, and while she isn’t mad at _him,_ she _is_ upset at the situation.

“A proper lady is _supposed_ to have a place to beautify herself,” She almost whines, but beneath the simple complaint is something closer to hurt, like this is another reminder that they’re trapped and they don’t have the luxury of comfortable space.

The frown lasts on her face longer than Wakko is comfortable with. She’s his baby sister, she’s not going to be upset on his watch, unless it’s funny and not from a place of real hurt. He glances up at the tall, _tall_ ceiling.

_Hmm...._

Wakko grabs the lightbulb that appears above his head and tosses it into his mouth, crunching on it. 

“Careful, if it isn’t funny you’ll cut your tongue on the glass,” Yakko calls over his shoulder. Wakko shrugs, and starts rifling through his gag bag. It looks like he’s got plenty of material, and while Yakko keeps writing up plans Wakko gets to work.

* * *

It’s a couple of hours later that Dot looks up from her book and she sees an entire second floor being built-scratch that, being _finished._ By Wakko. _Alone._

“Holy Cow!” She can’t help herself from exclaiming, and Yakko jumps out of the intense scene of concentration he was in and looks where Dot’s pointing.

His jaw hits the floor.

The _first floor_ , now.

“Hi guys!” Wakko waves from the entrance to the second floor, nailing down the last spiraling stair to it. “I got bored so I figured we could use a second floor!”

He skips down the steps and despite his rather hard stomping on them they stand firm. The craftsmanship is impeccable; Yakko and Dot meet in the middle of the first floor and glance at each other in shock.

“What have you guys been up to?” Wakko asks, completely innocent, as if he hadn’t just made an entire second floor on his own in the span of a _few hours._

“How did you _do_ that?” Dot asks, incredulous. Wakko looks confused, for a moment, and so she gestures wildly to the second floor. He shrugs.

“Just thought we had a lot of ceiling space, so we could use another floor. I think we have enough room for a third, but I thought I should take a break,” Wakko looks up at the new ceiling proudly.

“What measurements did you use?” Yakko asks, and Wakko stares at him blankly.

“Uhhhh...I kind of just started making stuff. I’m not good with numbers,” he responds.

“But how did you even get the _materials_ for this?” Dot rebukes, and Wakko pulls out a burlap sack.

“It’s all in my gag bag, see?” He reaches in and pulls out a long wooden board, showing it off before shoving it back into the bag. “Easy peasy. And look, Dot, now we have room for your girly stuff!”

“I protest to the fact that looking good must be described as girly, but regardless- _I’m so excited!_ ” She rushes forward and wraps Wakko in a tight hug, spinning him around. When he’s set down he stumbles a bit, dizzy.

“Glad you...like it,” he mumbles, accent a little stronger, before shaking his head and coming back to himself. “Do you guys wanna see the upstairs?”

Yakko, who has been previously speechless, jumps into action.

“Heck yeah I do! C’mon!” He lets Wakko lead them up to the second floor, and they marvel at the open space. Dot keeps pointing at places where she wants her stuff to be, and Wakko rolls his eyes, but it seems her joy brightens his day more than he though it would. She _was_ the reason he started building this, after all. Yakko is already dreaming up new plans, thinking of how to best utilize the space they now have. The kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom can stay downstairs, but they can make the living room smaller and put extra entertainment space up here.

“But, uh, yeah, that’s all,” Wakko has the audacity to look _sheepish_ , and Yakko won’t stand for it.

“Wakko, this is beyond words,” He kneels down to his level. “This is a great help. Now, I think I should make something for us to eat, cause building this _had_ got to have burnt up some calories, but do you think you might want to teach me how to build something later?” He smiles, and Wakko’s eyes go wide. Teaching his _big brother_ something for a change? It’s a dream come true.

“Would I!” He tackles Yakko in a hug, and when Yakko catches him, just for a moment, he forgets the situation they’re in, and focuses on Dot’s giggles and the excited pattering of her feet on the new wooden floor, and on Wakko’s prideful expression and smile.

* * *

Yakko has never had an issue with food before. He’s learned to make it, because Wakko needs it and Yakko would _never_ not be able to do something for his family’s needs, that’s ridiculous.

But right now he’s certainly regretting ever ingesting anything, because they’d had a sundae party to celebrate the third floor being made- _a celebration type picked by Wakko, who had headed the third floor expansion_ -and now he can’t sleep, because he feels like he’s going to _vomit._

His stomach feels like he just ate a bomb, and not for fun like Wakko sometimes does. He curls in on himself, trying not to make a fuss, but he opens his eyes and both Wakko and Dot are leaning over either side of him, mirrored looks of concern on their faces.

“Yakko, you look terrible,” Dot deadpans, but he can hear the slight tremor in her voice. She still occasionally hovers over Wakko, though has relaxed as he’s gone from eating like a normal person to his more “typical” unusually voracious appetite.

“It’s just some...,” he winces. “Some stomach pain. It’s nothing,” He smiles, even though he feels awfully sweaty and nauseous.

“I thought my problem was just stomach pain too,” Wakko rebukes, and, well, Yakko can’t really argue there.

“But we’ve been eating _with_ you, Wakko, it can’t be that. And it couldn’t be bad ice cream, or we’d be sick too,” Dot puts a finger to her chin and thinks, but can’t come up with anything.

“Don’t humans have that thing where they can’t drink milk?” Wakko suggests, and, well, doesn’t that make too much sense.

“Thanks for the plot mover, Wakko,” Yakko groans from his place on the bed.

“I’ll go get you some water. Maybe if we flush it out with other stuff, it’ll go away quicker,” Dot hops off of the bed and off to the kitchen. Yakko’s stomach groans in displeasure, and Yakko curls up tighter.

“Guess this means no more milk, huh? Oh well,” Wakko shrugs, and Yakko half glares at him.

“I’m not banning milk from the house just cause I can’t have it,” He says, a growl in his voice. Wakko shrugs again.

“Who said _you_ were banning it? I just don’t think we need it anymore,” He smiles, almost Cheshire. “Don’t have the craving for it anymore, right, Dot?”

“Right!”

Yakko almost jumps when he feels the bed dip down with Dot’s weight, surprised by her return, but he shifts to face her and takes the glass of water offered with a smile.

“Thanks, sis,” he takes a few sips, and while it doesn’t change much, he gives her a thumbs up anyway, so she’ll feel like she helped.

“Wakko, you need calcium in your diet,” he goes back to arguing, and Wakko leans back on his hands.

“Pretty sure toons don’t have certain diet they need.”

“Pretty sure toons don’t need to eat at all, but,” Yakko raises a brow and lets the sentence hang.

“Touche,” Wakko admits. “And hey, we’re broken body buddies!” He raises his hands up and grins, and Yakko tries for a smile, too, chuckling to himself.

“But I’m pretty sure we can get calcium in other foods. Just saying,” Wakko finishes, and Yakko gets it, but he isn’t going to deprive his siblings of pizza and ice cream just because his body can’t handle it. 

But it’s an argument for another day, because Yakko’s stomach makes another very unpleasant noise, and he slowly sits up and starts crawling his way to the end of the bed.

“Where are you going?” Dot asks.

“The bathroom,” Yakko says, and his voice sounds weak even to his ears. “Don’t wait up.”

* * *

An hour and a half later, Yakko stumbles out of the bathroom, drained, and he slumps in on himself as he shuffles back to bed, only to stop when he sees the bed itself.

In the middle, where he typically rests, is a fort of sorts. Rather, it’s a perfectly shaped resting spot for him, lined with the softest pillows and with a blanket his favorite color, all as comfy as can be.

“Take a rest, brother,” Wakko gestures to the bed nirvana, though Yakko can’t help but notice him wince when he looks at Yakko. Makes sense.

“Yeah, we set it all up nice for you! See how it feels!” Dot adds, and Yakko smiles and makes his way to the bed, worming into the spot made to perfectly fit him.

He sinks into the softness and sighs. At the very least, while his stomach is a mess, he doesn’t have to worry about any other part of him being uncomfortable.

“Thanks guys,” He mutters, spent. He’s never going to even _try_ and eat something with milk in it ever again, if this is the result.

“No prob,” Wakko waves off his thanks.

“You take care of us all the time. Turnabout’s fair play,” Dot quips, and Yakko chuckles, sighing and closing his eyes.

He’s asleep faster than expected, but he stays awake long enough to feel Wakko and Dot cuddle up on either side of him, like usual.

Despite his intestinal discomfort, he smiles.

* * *

Dot stares in the mirror.

Her new vanity is rather spectacular, and she’s been living on cloud nine since Yakko and Wakko finished it. They’d nearly gotten into an argument while making it-evidently, Yakko couldn’t understand how Wakko could see all the pieces and put them together without numbers or instructions, and _Wakko_ couldn’t understand how _Yakko_ couldn’t understand how the pieces fit together when looking at them as a whole.

_Boys._ She shakes her head and sighs, looking back at herself in the mirror.

She can see her brothers behind her. They match, of course, they’re the Warner Brothers. 

The Warner Sister is alone. 

She’s not unaware of _why_ she was made. A token female character, eye candy, take your pick. She’s both. Made to fill in the tiny gap Hollywood makes for female representation while continuing the legacy that women are supposed to look and act pretty, and that’s it.

It makes her blood boil. And yet, isn’t she falling into it? She _wants_ to be pretty, she _likes_ being cute, but is that just because she’s _supposed_ to?

She’s not even _just_ cute, anyway! She can nearly go toe to toe with Yakko when it comes to word play, and Wakko barely has her beat when it comes to strength. So what if she’s cute? She was drawn that way!

So why does it still feel so _weird?_

Her brow furrows. It’s not like she can even prove to anyone that she’s better, anyway, because Yakko and Wakko likely wouldn’t _care_ or _know_ , and they’re stuck in this tower for forever.

“My name is Dot Warner,” She starts, a soft tune, “And I always get the final word.”

She misses musical numbers. She misses having fun outside of this place. She misses messing with people. Yakko and Wakko seem so similar- _their names_ ** _rhyme_** _, for Pete’s sake_ -and she feels out of place here. But they were out of place _together_ out there.

“I though your name was Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third,” Yakko interjects, leaning a hand on her vanity. “Surprised you forgot, sis,” It’s all gentle ribbing, but now is _not_ the time.

“Oh, put a sock in it, Yakko,” She responds.

“Which one?” Wakko comes up on her other side, holding out two similarly disgusting socks for her to pick from. She pushes him away.

“Leave me alone!” It comes out louder and harsher than she wants it to, and as a result Wakko looks bewildered, and Yakko lifts his hand from the vanity to move it to his hip. “Go be-be gross _boys_ somewhere else,” She tries to cover up the actual frustration with a weak excuse, but Yakko just crosses his arms and raises a brow, and Wakko walks back over, sans socks.

“What’s the matter, Sis? _Something’s_ bothering you,” She sighs at the question.

“You guys match better than me,” She grumbles. “I’m the cute one, and that’s it? You two get to be witty and strong and creative and _funny_ and I’m just...,” She growls out the final word. “ _Cute._ ”

She sees Yakko and Wakko share a look over her head, and rolls her eyes.

“You _seriously_ think that’s all you are?” Yakko sounds...confused. Bewildered. Like her worry is _so_ unfounded it’s surprising she even is worrying at all.

“You’re way cooler than that,” Wakko agrees. “You’re smarter than me.”

“And you’re better at the physical jokes than me,” Yakko adds.

“I _know,_ ” She says, almost cheeky, but her mood refuses to lighten. “But-I don’t know. Iit’s not just that-I-I guess I miss doing stuff outside. Like songs.”

There’s a beat, and when she looks up, Yakko has a smile on his face that is nothing short of _sly._

“Songs, you say?” He rubs in chin in thought. “Wakko?”

“On it,” She watches as he pulls out instrument after instrument from his gag bag, until they practically have an orchestra. Wakko also pulls out a conductor’s wand.

“Shall we, m’lady?” Yakko holds out his hand, and when she takes it, he pulls her to the middle of the room. A spotlight lands on them, and the music starts.

“Her name is Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third,” He begins with a wink, “and no matter the situation or confrontation, she always gets the final word,” Yakko’s tenor is sugary sweet as he dances her around the room, and he passes her off to Wakko, who leaves the self playing instruments to their own devices.

“If you think you can beat her, just wait till ya meet her, cause you’ll realize that thought is absurd,” Wakko’s voice has a grovel from the accent, and he makes silly faces as they waltz, to make her giggle.

“Sure she’s cute,” Yakko starts.

“Quite the beaut,”

“But she’s got the strength of a brute!” They harmonize, and she pulls out her mallet. She watches as they cringe away in fake terror, and she does a fake swing before tossing the mallet away. “So _watch out_ , because if you make yourself a target she’ll shoot!”

She watches them laugh at the end of the line, and they do fit each other, don’t they? But they’re going out of their way to do this for her, and so what does it matter? Being different and being special are the same, depending on how you phrase it, and they don’t mind her being different at all.

The music keeps going, the piano leading into verse two.

“Don’t make her mad, don’t make her sad, if you want to keep your limbs intact,” Yakko twirls her, and she imagines being at a fancy Ball or Gala, surrounded by admirers. 

“She’s got all modes of attraction, and kneejerk reactions, it’s all just simple fact,” Wakko takes her for a spin himself, his movements more wild and less controlled than Yakko’s more straightforward dancing, but she loves it anyway, and is almost remiss when he passes her back to Yakko.

“She always tries her best,” Yakko dips her, low enough that her ears nearly touch the floor, and her tail presses close to her back.

“To be better from the rest,” Wakko continues.

“Because we all want to reach for the stars!” Yakko throws her up and she poses mid air before he catches her with his shoulders, letting her sit there. She can’t help but laugh at the whole thing.

“She’s Dot Warner,” Every time they go into unison, it’s perfect harmony, and she loves it. Them.

“Our giggling sister,”

“ _Does she know how much we’d miss her?_ ”

The music pauses, and they look to her patiently, to join the song, and for a moment she hesitates. Because she’s never had such a ballad before. What if her voice doesn’t sound right? What if she messes it up?

But Yakko and Wakko are smiling at her, as if they know she’ll do it right, and you know what. _Screw it._

“I’m Dot Warner!” She shouts, and the belting note rings as she jumps up. “I’m _no one’s_ former!” The music swells, and she stands on Yakko’s shoulders, triumphant. “I’m sweet and I’m tough!”

“Always more than good enough!” Wakko and Yakko crow as back up.

“And I’m better than why I was drawn!” It’s like a warrior cry, like she’s _daring_ the world to tell her different.

“She’s charming,” Yakko.

“And alarming,” Wakko.

“In every role I’m starring, no longer just the _token girl!_ ” She hops down from Yakko’s shoulder, taking center stage. This is what she is. The breaking of her own role, just as loud and proud and wild as her siblings, with a touch of cuteness that she loves. Because _hey_ , what’s wrong with being cute?

“With wit and sass,” Yakko and Wakko start to finish.

“I’m the _highest_ of class,” She interjects, giggling.

“She’s the best of our two worlds!” They all come together, Dot in the middle, the boys kicking out their outside legs and gesturing outwards with one arm as the music plays them out, and when the music number is over all Dot can do is drag her brothers together into a hug.

“Thank you,” because she _needed_ this. A sense of normalcy, the constant reminder that she’s _more_. She knows _why_ she was drawn, but who cares? She’s better than that.

She’s Dot Warner, Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the third, and she’s got her brothers behind her. 

And when she has them, _nothing_ can stop her.


	4. I love you, but sometimes I don't like you.  But I love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out, they can get sick of each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fanfic is becoming a beast. I have a whole series planned out, I've written the chaps down lol. I have notes on this thing now. I HAD TO RESEARCH WHAT BOOKS EXISTED IN THE 1920S IM IN TOO DEEP anyway-  
> Follow me on tumblr! @kitkat1003

Time passes and it’s maddening. Yakko keeps a calendar, but there’s no point in trying to know how long they’ve been trapped in here when they can’t even tell if they’re sleeping at night or day. They don’t know how long an hour is, a minute, month, a week, a day. Not by heart. So, for a while, they have to guess.

Yakko eventually makes a clock, sets a time, makes their day as normal as he can, starting the hour at a random time and suddenly dinnertime is 5:30pm instead of just sometime before bed, even though they can’t tell if it’s even close to 5:30pm outside. It doesn’t matter if it turns out they aren’t following the sun, the sun has never followed them, so fair’s fair. Besides, why stick with the world’s set of rules when those rules act like this is fine, that them being trapped is fine?

And hey, what’s a little madness? Who cares, right?

The tower becomes a lived-in space. The first two floors become living room areas, bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom. They never can be certain on the decor, and it changes daily, weekly, hourly, but that’s fine, because the idea of everything repeating, like the days have no difference between them makes Yakko want to curl into a ball and never straighten out.

The third floor is left mostly barren, because that’s where they practice their toon powers. Wakko has a penchant for bombs and offensive weapons, Yakko finds he can pull a pen out of anywhere and anything, and Dot has an affinity for her mallet, as well as fashion.

She likes to tailor, on occasion, and bribes Wakko to be her model for it by letting him perform songs via burping after dinner— _ she doesn’t mind the sound, it’s really the smell that makes her hate the whole thing _ —and Yakko starts being able to pull out random books from his hammerspace. They’re typically books he likes, thank god, but sometimes they’re just confusing. He likes  _ Dr. Dolittle _ , though it is a bit silly, and the idea of talking animals being strange doesn’t make sense to him, being animal-like himself, but at the least it’s an interesting series with many books to go through. He likes  _ Winnie the Pooh, _ too, and the  _ Velveteen Rabbit _ is surprisingly sad, but at least it’s a change of pace in comparison to the happier children’s books he reads.

He ventures to more adult focused books, like  _ The Great Gatsby, _ which is depressing but also an interesting commentary of the time, and the  _ Murder of Roger Ackroyd _ by Agatha Christie. He actually reads through that one a couple times, to go back and find the clues Miss Christie left for the reader, and he finds it utterly fascinating. Who knew that someone could write like that? Leaving little pieces that only come together to make something when the last piece is found. It’s like a blank puzzle that turns on when you finish it.

Dot likes to read with him, pulling out a magazine about the daily fashion news or parties. He doesn’t know what Playboy is, but the moment it appears in her hands he rips it away and throws it in the fire. She evidently sees enough just from the cover, because she doesn’t argue.

He occasionally reads to Wakko and Dot. Typically before bed—he regrets  _ ever  _ reading the  _ Velveteen Rabbit _ to them, because Wakko didn’t sleep for a few days after. He tries to get Wakko to read  _ with  _ him, but Wakko seems to find learning anything in a standardized way quite difficult, and all it took was one semi pointed comment from Dot about it to keep the boy from even trying, shame painting his cheeks the red of their nose. Yakko considers talking to Dot about it, but he doesn’t want to further embarrass Wakko by bringing it up, and it’s hard to be secretive in a small space.

So he lets it go, because they have plenty of time— _ too much, too much to ever fill, and sometimes all they can do is sit and hope for it to move faster because boredom makes them dull and he hears Dot cry into her pillow some nights because she’s not as quiet as she thinks she is and he sleeps so lightly he can barely call it rest _ —and continues to play and have fun and learn new things. He gets an atlas, one day, and memorizes the names of all the countries, hums out a melody, learns rhyme schemes.

And when he starts up a tune, they all fall in line. That’s the thing—while he and Dot learn the normal way, Wakko seems to be able to do just about anything when he stays out of his own head. Which is odd, because Wakko doesn’t talk too much, so he must be in his head plenty. Perhaps, then, the line between thinking and doing is so wide that when he tries to both everything gets jumbled. Because when they burst into song, Wakko dances and prances and creates lyrics like a pro, whether they’re singing about nothing at all to complex philosophical concepts, with a plethora of large words that if Wakko tried to read he would trip and stumble as they were slanted stairs. Occasionally, Yakko will ask if Wakko even knows what they’re singing about, only ever curious, and Wakko can talk his ear off about it all. Yet, when Yakko brings him into a classroom setting, Wakko’s face goes blank, and no comprehension of anything Yakko says ever shows.

Clearly he has a grasp on the English language, clearly he’s smart _ —Yakko could  _ **_never_ ** _ think his brother stupid, because no stupid person could build a second floor without any plans, could follow jokes and make his own quips on occasion that send him and Dot into laughing fits, could pick the perfect moment for a physical joke in the middle of a conversation; no way that Wakko is anything  _ **_close_ ** _ to stupid _ —but the moment it’s a classroom type setting all of that goes out the window. Is it the motivation? Is it the material? Is it  _ him? _

Yakko has to figure this out, but at least he doesn’t have to figure it out soon. He has time.

* * *

They aren’t perfect, despite the look of them, despite how they’re drawn to be. They can’t be expected, forced together 24/7, to not get into petty squabbles. And they are petty. Dot hates sharing the bathroom with ‘gross boys,’ hates it when they play during dinner, Yakko hates it when they’re making too much noise during his reading times, when they complain too much, Wakko grumps about when they eat something he was supposedly saving, or throw something away he thinks he could eat (a.e. a banana peel, a watermelon rind, moldy bread, etc), or when they talk too softly or too fast, as if they don’t want him to be able to listen. It’s never anything too bad, and they get over it within the next few hours, but sometimes it builds.

For instance, Wakko is going stir crazy.

Dot and Yakko can tell. They don’t mind sitting still on occasion, given the right persuasion, but Wakko is a mile a minute of movement, everything twitching and tapping, tail swishing back and forth and wagging when he’s excited.

There’s only so many times one can run around a small space before they get bored. Only so many months one can spend exploring and doing the same things with little variation 

“Ugh, there’s nothing to  _ dooooooo, _ ” Wakko whines, flopping onto the armrest of Dot’s chair. She and Yakko are reading the same book, they’re going to discuss it when they’re done. It’s a fun blend of their skills and likes-talking about reading.

“There’s plenty of things to do! Why don’t you read a book with us?” Dot suggests, and maybe it’s a little mean, but it’s more out of ignorance than cruelty. It’s been what feels like a few months since she saw Wakko struggle, how could she have known that he’d written off reading entirely.

“You could read to me,” Wakko actually perks up at his own suggestion, like a lightswitch flipping on. Yakko doesn’t mind it at all, and is about to volunteer when Dot raises a brow.

“Can’t you read  _ yourself _ ?” She shoots back, and Wakko deflates, before he crosses his arms, on the defensive.

“I don’t need to,” He says, and Doll rolls her eyes.

“If that was true, you wouldn’t want someone to read to you,” Like usual, her words are sharper than his, but she makes one mistake. “You can’t just refuse to learn forever. What are you going to do when you get into the real world?”

Dot is trying to hope. She trusts that, someday, they’ll escape. Doesn’t matter how long it takes, they’ll still escape, because she trusts their family, and she trusts their growing abilities.

But Wakko...well, he isn’t quite so positive, at the moment.

“We’re never _ going  _ to the real world!” He shouts. “I know what  _ forever _ means, I’m not _ that  _ dumb, and that’s how long they’re keeping us here,” Dot is taken aback, but Wakko is a roll, frustrated and ashamed and angry, and Yakko is cut off by his next spitting sentence. “And the worst part of it is that I’m stuck here with a  _ stuck-up jerk _ like  _ you! _ ”

“Wakko Warner!” Yakko stands, and he doesn’t typically raise his voice like this, not angry, but that was uncalled for, and Wakko—

Wakko  _ flinches. _

Yakko falters, Dot’s eyes are already teary, and Wakko dashes off, vanishes up to the second floor before anyone can stop him.

Yakko attends to the sibling that is close by, because Dot is upset and angry and hurt, so he soothes her tears.

“Why would he  _ say  _ that?” She asks, confused. “Did he mean it?”

“Of course not—he’s just not handling this as well as you are. You picked reading up way faster than he did. He’s been struggling with it, and with all...this,” he gestures to the tower. Dot sniffles. “You  _ do _ have a habit of saying things that make you sound high and mighty, your majesty,” He adds, with a grin, and Dot giggles a little, wiping her eyes.

“Sorry,” She says, and he shrugs.

“Not me who needs an apology, sis, but I appreciate it anyway. Let’s give Wakko some time to calm down, kay?” He picks her up and smiles. “I don’t know what chapter you got to, but I have some thoughts on the 5th one.”

She grins back at him.

One down, one to go.

* * *

They find Wakko curled up in a ball on the couch upstairs, face hidden from the world and back facing the outside. Dot comes over quietly, soft steps toward the tense coiled spring that is her brother.

“Didn’t mean it,” He sounds very...defeated. “I’m sorry, Dot,” He sniffles, and she still can’t see his face.

“It’s okay,” she responds, because staying mad never helped anyone anyway. “I shouldn’t have been so mean about it.  _ I’m  _ sorry. I didn’t know it was so hard.”

“It _ is _ ,” Wakko finally turns to face her, and his face is stained with tears. “I can’t get it to make sense in my head—and you got it  _ easy. _ Maybe I _ am _ stupid,” He turns to face her, sitting up and curling his knees to his chest, and the last phrase is muffled by his knees.

“You’re not! You’re better at building things than I could ever be! Words can be hard, though. It took me a bit to get it.” 

He looks over at her, shyly, as if searching her face for any sign of a joke. She remains resolute, and sincere. “Really?” 

“Yeah! Hey, maybe I could try and teach you. Yakko’s a real  _ lazy _ teacher,” She jokes, and Yakko takes that as his cue to walk over.

“I take offense to that,” He responds without heat, before looking over to Wakko, who shrinks under his gaze. The action makes Yakko want to disappear—how could he make his own brother  _ scared _ of him?

“Sorry for scaring you, Wakko,” He tells him, hoping Wakko accepts the apology. 

“It wasn’t you-it was just,” Wakko is quick to reassure Yakko that he wasn’t scared of  _ him _ , because he wasn’t, and knows that Yakko would never act in a way that should make Wakko afraid of him, he just was scared because “You’re tall,” He finally finds the words, and Yakko blinks. “The execs who didn’t like us, they were tall, and they shouted a lot, and I was thinking about when we were out and I was already upset and it just  _ happened _ , but  _ you’re _ not scary,” He gives Yakko a shaky grin. “How could someone even _ be _ scared of you?”

“Hey,” Yakko takes mock offense, but a weight lifts off of his shoulders.

He shuffles over, and takes the hat off of Wakko’s head to ruffle his hair. Wakko reaches for it with sweater paws, standing on the couch to grab his hat back, and the tense air starts to dissipate.

Wakko yawns.

“I’m tired,” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. Yakko settles down on the couch, between him and Dot, and lifts Wakko into his lap.

“Guess it’s naptime, then,” He leans back, hands behind his head. “Dot?”

She’s already curling up against him.

Eventually, Yakko manages to get horizontal, Wakko and Dot curled up together on top of him. Slowly, he lets out a sigh of relief and sleeps.

The next day, he finds Dot and Wakko at a new dining room table, both hunched over a piece of paper. Wakko looks very confused, and a little frustrated, but Dot goes over the same letter sounds over and over as if it were the first time, and that type of relentless explanation manages to get through the mental blocks Wakko sometimes has.

“So, the ‘c’ makes a cuh sound, ‘a’ makes an aay sound, so what’s that word?” She points.

“Ca-Catch?” Wakko tries, and Dot cheers, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“You did it!” She says, and Wakko brightens like the sun.

“Faboo!” He responds, and the exclamation is so startling that Dot starts laughing. Wakko joins in, and Yakko is chuckling to himself all the way to the kitchen.

Within two months, Wakko joins their book club. They make matching t-shirts.

* * *

Yakko loves his sibs, he really does. They’re basically the only reason he stuck around for so long. They need him.

But sometimes, he doesn’t want them.

Little siblings bicker and it gets real grating. He just wants one day, one, where he doesn’t have to deal with a stupid argument! Is that so much to ask

He feels like he never gets this petty over the small stuff. Aren’t there more pressing things to be upset about? He doesn’t expect his siblings to be friendly to each other all the time, but would it kill them to resolve their own issues? Especially when they’re as small as whose mallet is whose(they’re identical) or where a furniture piece should go(when it’s going to be moved within a week anyway, because they’re always changing the format of the tower). If Wakko’s hat is better than Dot’s flower. How the _kitchen silverware_ should be organized, even. Yakko can’t see why it matters.

He can’t even get peace now, trying to get through the book they’re in the middle of in their book club. Wakko and Dot had sped ahead one day when Yakko was making dinner, and now he’s trying to catch up, but he can’t because they're having another shouting match. They're hunched over a fashion magazine, trying to figure out what? What dress looks cuter? Wakko, apparently, picked the wrong one, and now Dot is upset, and now he’s upset because she’s upset at him, and it’s just so much.

Eventually he snaps.

“Alright, that’s it!” He shouts, and Wakko and Dot look up from their squabble-about  _ what dress looks cuter _ , off all things. “I’m going upstairs, and you two deal with each other for a few hours, because I can’t.” He runs a hand down his face and sighs, grabbing his book and disappearing to the second floor, not even bothering to see their reaction.

And you see, you’d think he’d like the peace and quiet, but two hours in and his ears keep twitching, aching for the sound of silly conversation and laughter and pattering feet. Sure, they’re annoying, and they squabble over silly things, but Yakko is paranoid at heart because the background sounds of them messing around is somehow _relaxing_ , because then at least he knows that they’re there, that they’re safe. Silence is uncertainty, silence means he’s  _ alone _ , and he keeps subconsciously searching for their noise, to know that they are, and in turn he is, safe and there. He thinks he might be a little  _ too _ used to them, because without the ambient noise he can’t focus. 

Four hours later, and he comes back down, and is greeted to an armful of new books he definitely didn't make, and they don’t look published. They look more like...picture books?

“We made them for you!” Dot says.

“I did the pictures, and Dot wrote the stories,” Wakko adds.

Yakko’s heart is so full it feels like his ribs are cracking.

“What a couple of authors you are!” he laughs, and they follow him all the way back to his chair. He sets the books in a stack on his lap, picking up the first one and opening his mouth to read aloud as Dot and Wakko sit on the armrests of the couch, eagerly awaiting his narration and reaction.

Yakko thinks he got pretty lucky with his sibs, even with their petty arguments, smiling down at the pages and reading the books through.

* * *

Dot loves her brothers. She does.

But they’re  _ gross. _

Well, not gross, but certainly not clean _._ They make messes and forget to clean them up. And it’s not that bad, Dot doesn’t mind cleaning. Wakko builds them things, Yakko takes care of the meals, cleaning is just part of her chores in this whole situation.

It reaches a limit, and she hits it when she watches Yakko spill marinara sauce all over the ground and then do nothing about it. Wakko slips in it and the two just laugh it off, but the sauce splatters everywhere, and she has to clean that, and—

“Ugh!” She stomps her foot in frustration, and Yakko and Wakko turn to her, confused. “You two are disgusting! I have to clean this all up later, and-ugh!” She turns on her heel and heads upstairs. She slams the hatch door to the second floor shut, and Wakko and Yakko wince at the sound.

“Is the second floor specifically for upset people now, or is it just a really lazy plot device?” Yakko snarks, and Wakko blinks.

“Should we clean this up?”

“Yeah, probably.”

She comes down an hour later, because she skipped dinner and though she doesn’t have a food issue she’s used to eating with her siblings, and she walks into a sparkling clean kitchen.

“This is a once a year affair,” Yakko says, as she stands there shocked. “Maybe thrice if you pay us.”

“I ate a bar of soap,” Wakko says, and bubbles come out of his mouth.

“You two are ridiculous,” Dot says, and she can’t help the grin on her face.

She hugs them till she hears something crack. Probably Yakko’s back, with how tense her eldest brother is.

It’s halfway to filthy by the end of the week, but she can tell they’re trying, and that’s enough.

* * *

So yeah, they get sick of each other. They have petty and not so petty squabbles, but no matter what they end up in the same place.

Curled up near each other, blankets pulled close so that the edges of the bed are barren. Yakko always talks in sleep, Wakko drools and kicks, Dot will shift from time to time and grab at air, or anything in grasping range, but they won’t wake up, because despite those annoyances, together they feel safe.

And that’s what family is for, isn’t it?


	5. Some Growing Pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5: Just how old are they? And how are they heating this place?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the cover I drew in chapter 1!

Age is a fickle thing, for toons. Some toons are created old, with a backstory they never lived. Some toons are made to be adults in their prime, never aging, never older or younger despite the passage of time. Some are made to be perpetual children, to never grow up.

They fall into that third category. They think.

See, they were out for a little over half a year. They had a contract, they did vaudeville shows with a crew of older comedians, many who liked them and one who  _ hated _ them, and they never reached what one might call a birthday before they were locked up.

_ The one who hated them, he taught them what it was  _ **_like_ ** _ to be hated, for someone to despise them that much. He was the first they knew personally. They didn’t know that he was a template for everyone else, eventually. That the whole world would mirror him soon. _

“Do you think we’re gonna get older?” Wakko asks one day, out of the blue, and Dot and Yakko glance over at him.

“Why would we? We’re toons,” Dot responds.

“Yeah, I don’t think we’re made to age,” Yakko agrees, and Wakko shrugs.

“I guess. I think I just wanted a birthday party. Cake and ice cream...,” he drools just think about it.

“Do we even  _ have  _ a birthday?” Dot asks, and there’s a thought. They all pause, and Yakko gets a smile on his face that promises something  _ interesting. _

“Why not pick one?”

* * *

The conversation ends there, but it’s brought up again, later, and Yakko pulls out the calendar one day after lunch.

“You guys thought about it?” He asks, and at their questioning looks he continues. “The birthday thing.”

Dot shrugs.

“I guess. It seems weird to just  _ pick _ one. We were made, not born.”

Yakko rolls his eyes. “That’s semantics,” he shoots back.

“Your main form of comedy is semantics.” She’s quick to reply.

“Touché.” He grins, because it never gets old to have someone you can go verbally back and forth with.

“I’d like a birthday,” Wakko pops in, and Dot sighs.

“Well, I wanna go first.” She clasps her hands and raises them to her cheek. “I’m a spring girl, a blossoming flower.”

Yakko makes a face. “That saccharine makes me wilt,” he snarks, and she glares at him. “How about the first day of spring?” he offers, raising his hands in surrender. “It’s either the 19, 20, or 21st of March.” 

Dot considers this.

“March is such a boring month. What about May? It’s more the month of spring than  _ March. _ And the 21st, because I only ever shop at  _ Forever 21! _ ” She strikes a pose.

“Pretty sure that company doesn’t exist yet, so you’re not getting a sponsorship anytime soon.”

“I can try anyway!”

“Didn’t they go bankrupt? Is this really the hill you want to die on?”

“ _ Yakko! _ ”

“May 21st it is!” Yakko marks it on the calendar with a strained grin, and Dot poses victoriously. “Wakko?” he asks. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think I have a favorite season,” Wakko taps his hands on his seat to a random beat, tilting his head to the side. “Maybe Halloween? I like getting free candy.” He shrugs.

“Yeah, but then you’d have to share the day with all the trick or treaters! This is your day,” Dot hops up to stand on her seat.

“October 1st? Same month as one of your favorite holidays, but far enough away that it won’t steal your thunder,” Yakko suggests, and Wakko thinks for a moment, and then nods.

“Okay, sounds good.”

“Good,” Yakko marks it down.

“What about you, Yakko?” Dot asks, leaning her elbows on the table and propping her head up with her hands.

“I was thinking uhh....December 31st,” He has a specific reason for it, one he isn’t going to share, but as is his siblings don’t need one.

“That’s awfully close to Christmas,” Dot frowns.

“And it’s right before New Years,” Wakko adds.

“I know, I know, but—I just like it. And besides, what better way to ring in the new year than to celebrate me, huh?” He grins, and Dot rolls her eyes.

“Okay, but it’s kind of hypocritical,” she tells him.

“There goes my place on Santa’s nice list, then, huh,” Yakko writes it down. According to when he started marking the calendar, they’ve passed Dot’s birthday and Wakko’s. He frowns.

“Guess I’m the only one getting a party this year,” he mutters, looking down at the count. He’d based it off of the last date he could remember before being put in the tower, and how long he thinks they’ve been in here. The thought makes him frown.

“Dangit!” Dot curses, causing Yakko and Wakko to jump. “I wanted a party,” it’s a whine.

“It’s not like there’s anyone besides us to celebrate it,” Wakko says it a bit bluntly, a bit morose, a bit matter of fact, and Dot flinches like she’s been hit, and starts to cry.

“Wakko!” Yakko scolds, and Wakko just blinks.

“What? It’s the truth. I try not to think about it but—” he looks away, unexpectedly numb about the whole affair. “They’re not gonna let us out just cause it’s our birthday.”

“Just shut up!” Dot shouts. “Mayb _ e I  _ don’t wanna think about it!”

She stomps off, and Wakko watches her leave.

“What’d you do that for?” Yakko asks, because Wakko isn’t dumb. He knows what he’s saying will hurt.

“I don’t know,” Wakko replies. “I think I’m just tired of pretending. I don’t think we’re ever gonna leave.”

And Yakko, well, Yakko didn’t know he had it in him to be angrier at the ones who locked them in here, to hate them all even more, but he does, because the expression of defeat on Wakko’s face should  _ never _ be there.

“Yeah, but who can throw a party better than the three of us?” He tries, and Wakko smiles a little, hopping off of his stool. He grabs some food out of the fridge and disappears, likely upstairs to eat and maybe set off some bombs.

Yakko hangs up the calendar, flipping it a page and staring at “Yakko’s Birthday!” written in his typical cursive, on December 31st.

The oldest day in a year, on the cusp of the new one. Kind of like him—old and young at the same time. 14 and 30, a brother and father, and a million things in between that threaten to tear him half, like every day he’s struggling to be the kid he wants to be and the adult he  _ needs _ to be.

He’s very tired, for not even a year old in existence.

He finds Dot, teary eyed in her bed, and jokes away her sorrow. Later, Wakko will apologize—he won’t take back what he said, however. Because nothing he said was a lie.

Whoever said the truth is better than a lie never lived the life the Warners have.

* * *

See, they’ve been using fire for light, for cooking, for practically anything that requires heat or light, because they can’t figure out how to put in electricity. They can summon the incidental lightbulbs that appear over their head in the presence of a sudden idea, but those flicker out fast. They can summon things that require electricity, but to actually use them they need power.

They can tell that it’s nearing winter, because the Tower is getting colder. Metal doesn’t insulate, and they’ve had to start wearing socks to keep their toes from getting frostbite. And toons who don’t have to wear shoes being forced to wear things on their feet is a serious form of torture. Rugs could work, but Dot says that they’re tacky, and so they’re only reserved for certain areas. Even then, they get cold too.

“We can’t summon an outlet,” Yakko paces back and forth in the first floor living room, and Wakko and Dot watch this both for entertainment but also out of concern, because Yakko takes worrying to a professional level. “We can make batteries, but those don’t last long. We don’t have enough toon power yet to make our own electricity...”

“Have we tried drawing one?” Wakko asks. “You have pens on you all the time,” Yakko looks up, blinks, and slams his fist into his palm.

“That’s got to be it,” He pulls out a calligraphy pen, shuffling over to where they planned to place a TV, and he sits on his knees, sticking his tongue out in concentration.

“Do you _ know _ how to draw an outlet?” Dot pipes up from behind him, and Yakko rolls his eyes.

“Of course I know how to draw an outlet!” He responds, as if he’s offended she would even ask, but then he stares at the wall for about a minute and then slumps over.

“So?” She makes sure to add a bit of smugness to her voice. 

“Do you have a picture of one?” He manages, embarrassment tinging his voice.

“I don’t know. Wakko?” Wakko searches through his gag bag, and pulls out a book.

“Right here!” He scampers over to Yakko, opening the book to the right page, and then Yakko finally gets to work.

Once the outlet is rather perfectly drawn—those are Yakko’s words, not theirs, and Dot rolls her eyes when he says it. All they can do is wait and see if it works.

“If this works, I’m using it to straighten my hair before we use it for anything else,” She grins, and Wakko crosses his arms across his chest.

“Hey,  _ I  _ was the one who thought of drawing it! I want to make some good food. We won’t have to use the icebox anymore!”

Yeah, they don’t exactly have a fridge.

“Well,  _ I  _ drew it, and I’m the oldest, so I’ll decide what to do with it,” Yakko interrupts the two of them. He squints at the drawing, and reaches over to add another bolt.

“I thought you said it was perfectly drawn.”

“Everyone’s a critic.” Yakko rolls his eyes, and Dot grins, but they are interrupted by Wakko’s gasp.

“It worked!” He points, and sure enough, where there was once a wall with a drawing is now an outlet. Yakko wastes no time in pulling out a heater and setting it up.

“We’ll figure out everything else later,” he says, “But we need heat or we’re gonna become popsicles.”

“I’d like to be that tasty,” Wakko rubs his tummy in thought, licking his lips.

“That’s gross, Wakko,” Dot deadpans.

“Eh.” Wakko shrugs.

Yakko shakes his head at the two of them, but he’s smiling.

Electricity makes the entire tower better. Wakko is most excited about the TV and fridge, and Dot is just glad that she can actually see without having to light a match every two seconds.

Yakko is happy with the fact that they have heat, and that’s his opinion on the matter.

They burn their socks. It’s a good day.

* * *

They’re sturdy, for toons, but they aren’t invincible. Contrary to popular belief, injuries to toons can occur. Injury, sickness, etc, it’s all a part of a toon’s life, to a lesser extent, and honestly, Dot is surprised that one of them hasn’t gotten hurt sooner.

The first few months they didn’t do much. Then they were just getting into the groove, and then they were constantly redecorating, and then there was the talk of birthdays, and then there was the whole electricity debacle. They haven’t had the time, not yet, to be wild enough to warrant serious injury. Wakko’s stomach thing doesn’t count, because that wasn’t him being silly so much as it was the dangerous situation.

But, Dot thinks, it was going to happen eventually. 

Wakko goes off on his own more often than they do. Yakko doesn’t really seem to like alone time, and Dot doesn’t like to be without her siblings for too long. Even if they’re just background noise, that is more comforting than being alone and knowing they’re on a separate floor. She does, of course, have days where she needs to be alone, but those are few and far in between.

Wakko likes to be alone. He has his own adventures, and maybe that’s just in his nature. The quiet one, to flit in and out of their lives. She doesn’t like that thought, but it comes unbidden to her some days. Of course, he hangs out with them more than he spends time alone, but still. She wonders.

She’s playing with different hairstyles up on the second floor, and Yakko is downstairs, pouring over the encyclopedia he managed to summon— _ evidently, he’s a history buff, and it doesn’t  _ **_not_ ** _ make sense but it doesn’t  _ **_make_ ** _ sense either _ —while Wakko messes around on the third floor.

And then, they hear Wakko cry out in pain, and suddenly Yakko is just there. She doesn’t even think she saw him go up to the second floor before he’s just _at_ the third, because by the time she gets up there he’s already cradling Wakko close. Wakko keeps trying to reach for his ankle, left leg curled to his chest.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“I-I tripped when I was running to the canon, and my ankle hurts!” Wakko cries, whimpering, and Yakko shushes him, soft.

“It looks twisted,” she whispers, more to herself than anything else.

Yakko turns his head to her sharply. “What do we do?” he asks, as if she would know. She shrugs.

“I dunno! I think—don’t you ice stuff like that? At the very least he should lay down,” she fumbles for a solution, but Yakko takes it, nodding and picking Wakko up.

“Sound good, buddy?” he asks. Wakko buries his face in Yakko’s chest in response, and Yakko’s frown deepens.

Dot gets the ice pack while Wakko gets situated, rushing over to wrap it around his ankle. He hisses at the cold, but relaxes as the numbing feeling takes effect.

“Better?” Yakko asks, and Wakko nods.

“Sorry,” Wakko shrugs, sheepish.

“Be more careful next time!” Dot scolds, but not too harshly. The last thing they need is Wakko crying because she was rude. Yakko already looks stressed enough.

They give Wakko dinner in bed, even though technically they’d agreed not to do so since they’re sharing a bed, because this is just an exception. Dot practically bullies Wakko into being careful and clean while he eats.

“If I feel a single crumb on my side of the bed, I’m coming for you,” she pokes him in the chest once, and Wakko chuckles nervously and nods.

Once Wakko and Yakko are asleep, Dot hops out of bed to the dining room table. She pulls out a book—one on first aid. The last thing she needs is another situation like this, where one of her brothers is hurt and she doesn’t know the solution. She opens the tome, and gets to work.

Yakko finds her there hours later, asleep and drooling on the book. He carefully pulls it out from underneath her, and carries her to bed. He glances at the cover. First aid?

Well, isn’t that useful. He knew his sister was smart. 

He dog ears her page and flips back to the beginning, skimming through the page as he gets ready to make breakfast.

* * *

Time continues to move onward.

They decorate for Christmas. They celebrate Yakko’s birthday, and then the New Year, and then every holiday after that. Yakko discovers Shakespeare and nearly bores his siblings to death with it. Wakko makes weirder and weirder combinations of food, as well as elaborate machines that serve little purpose. Dot learns how to use makeup after many, many attempts that leave her brothers in stitches, and styles her hair a million ways.

The world goes on without them, but, well, they move on without the world.

Turnabout’s fair play, after all.


	6. Christmas Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6: I’ll be home for Christmas....you can count on me...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made Santa problematic

Their first Christmas in the tower is on the horizon, and while they try to remain optimistic about it all, it’s hard to be happy when you’re living in a prison.

Yakko, as usual, is shoving down his own sadness with ease. Wakko watches, with sharp eyes behind the veneer of dull suspicion, as Yakko cheerfully pulls out a Christmas tree from nowhere, has them all put up the ornaments one by one, instead of just throwing stuff on there. To elongate the process, perhaps, to force them to focus on the action rather than the lack of an escape.

Wakko sees, sometimes, Yakko’s eyes dart to the water tower door. He hears, at night, Yakko, going to the door and trying to wrench it open. Some nights Yakko spends hours, sometimes minutes, and sometimes Wakko hears Yakko stop, sit, and cry into his knees. He’s very quiet, but so is the tower, at night, and they have terribly good hearing for toons.

Yakko’s always smiling in the morning, with breakfast. Wakko worries.

The first few months after they’d figured out them being locked up wasn’t some prank, they’d thrown anything they could at the door to try and get out. After they’d ran out of ideas and materials, they’d quit, because it was more depressing to try, hope, be constantly disappointed than just to forget.

Or try to forget. Wakko guesses that Yakko can’t.

And Dot isn’t exactly thrilled, either. Wakko thinks she misses the outside more than she lets on. He vaguely remembers her, on days they felt like wreaking havoc would be boring, taking them on a picnic. The stock market hadn’t crashed yet, and then it did, so they didn’t have a lot of money. They did have the ability to steal, but even then they didn’t do it much because it wasn’t fun or right to steal from people who were already going bankrupt.

They’re _mischievous_ , not cruel. Wakko wonders if the people who locked them in here knew that difference.

“What are we gonna do for Christmas?” he asks one afternoon, during lunch. “Do you think Santa can get in here with the door locked?”

The question has Dot suck in a sharp breath. She looks away, upset, and Yakko gives him a look, the one he gives whenever Wakko says something tactless.

Wakko doesn’t have a lot of tact. He thinks he might’ve eaten it, whatever it is.

“Santa can get in anywhere,” Yakko replies, hands on his hips, confident. “And we’ve been pretty good, despite the circumstances, so I think we’ll be getting plenty of presents from him.

That’s something that Wakko worries about. Presents. What is he even supposed to give his sibs that they can’t just create with toon powers? Making cards seems lazy, even if he would put all his effort into them.

Yakko, he’s sure, already has an idea. Because Yakko is smart. Dot probably has them figured out too.

“I thought you were off Santa’s nice list,” Dot says with a grin. “You know, for being a hypocrite?”

“I think he’ll find it in his heart to forgive me this year,” Yakko shoots back, hand on his chest, before standing up to put his plate in the sink. 

Wakko will lick them clean with his tongue, and Dot will put them in the dishwasher, and one of them will put them away when they’re done depending on when it finishes. They’re efficient, kind of.

“Should we decorate?” he asks, because so far they only have the tree, and the tower looks a little barren.

Dot’s eyes sparkle at the idea, and Wakko knows he is going to regret asking.

* * *

By the end of the next day, the whole tower is put together, tinsel and twinkling lights that flicker hanging from the walls and ceiling. Dot puts mistletoe over every doorway they’ve made, and every time they happen to be beneath it, she makes sure they either give her a kiss on the cheek or she gives them one.

Yakko thinks it’s cute, if silly, and Wakko just shrugs it off.

They make a fireplace, with a chimney that they aren’t sure goes all the way through. Wakko tried climbing it, but halfway up he found himself shot back down, rolling across the floor covered in soot.

He couldn’t even try and argue to not take a bath that day. Yakko had dunked him in and hadn’t let him out until the black stopped coming off on Yakko’s gloves.

His hopes for Santa visiting are dashed, and he can see Dot deflate too.

“Who needs the guy, anyway,” he hears Yakko mutter, and Wakko wonders.

* * *

Dot is very, very sure that this Christmas is going to be great. She knows it is, despite the fact that they don’t even know if Santa can come see them, despite the fact that they won’t be able to go anywhere to see snow, despite how the world around her wants to tell her it won’t be.

She will _spite that_ because she refuses to let anyone take this season from her. She and Yakko and Wakko start a food fight in the kitchen when making cookies, and cookie batter splatters all over the wall. 

Wakko ducks behind the kitchen island, with her, and holds out his hand.

“Truce?” He’s wearing an army hat, comically large on his head, with the straps hanging down past his shoulders.

If she wasn’t astronomically cute herself, Wakko might give her a run for her money.

“Let’s give our brother a  _ wet  _ new coat,” she agrees, and Yakko becomes the color of cookie batter in seconds.

“Betrayal! By my own siblings no less! Is  _ nothing _ sacred?!” Yakko cries, leaning heavily against the stove with the back of his hand placed dramatically against his forehead. Dot and Wakko giggle, coming around to face him.

“I don’t know, I think this is a good look for you,” Dot gives him a once over and hides a laugh behind her hand. Wakko reaches out a finger and swipes a bit of the batter off of Yakko, sticking it in his mouth to taste.

“Mmmm,” he grins, and Yakko gets a mischievous gleam in his eye.

“You know, you’re right Dot! I ought to share my new looks with you, don’t you think?” he reaches out and sweeps them into a goopy hug before either of them can escape, and all three of them share the wealth of the batter that was supposed to go in the oven.

Dot takes a bath, then Yakko does, and Wakko licks himself and the kitchen clean. He’d offered to lick them clean, but they politely declined.

“Slobber just isn’t a good look on me,” she’d told him, and Wakko had shrugged and eaten the demolished mixing bowl.

After that, they actually make cookies, because as tasty as the batter was to Wakko, they might want some warm, chocolatey goodness.

They make milk-free ones, too, even though Yakko says they don’t have to, because they want him to have a good time too.

Besides, the cookies taste fine without milk. Who needs lactose?

* * *

That night, Dot is sitting at her vanity, and she looks in the mirror and is ever aware of the background of cold metal. The decorations look gorgeous, she put them up, she did everything she could to make the Tower become the season she loves. 

_ (Well, she technically loves the spring the most, with its gorgeous flowers and sunny days for picnics, but still. Who doesn’t love winter? It has Christmas! And, now, it has Yakko’s birthday!) _

But, even with all the decorations and fun, even with the mistletoe and the letters to Santa she can’t send, she feels...

_ Miserable. _

She wants to go outside. She wants to play in the snow. She wants to harass street carolers by messing with the lyrics of their songs. She wants to be out there, with people, in the world, instead of sequestered away.

She sighs, remembering a tune from their previous Christmas.

_ I’ll be home for Christmas. _

_ You can count on me. _

_ Please have snow, and mistletoe, _

_ And presents under the tree. _

_ Christmas Eve will find me, _

_ where the love light gleams... _

She trails off and sighs again, resting her arms on the vanity, and then her head on her arms.

She doesn’t notice the figure peeking from the third floor, frowning down at her in concern. Doesn’t notice the lightbulb appear over his head, before he ducks back upstairs.

She just sits there, thinking of the last time she saw a single snowflake.

* * *

Wakko locks up the third floor, a week and a half before Christmas.

When they ask, he tells them it’s a surprise. Because it will be. He finally knows what his gift for them, for Christmas, will be, and he can’t let them ruin it, because he really wants to see the pure surprise on their faces when they witness it.

He spends the days up till Christmas Eve working on it, finishing it Christmas Eve morning after breakfast and before lunch. He’ll have to double check it before showing it to them, but that’s fine. It’ll be about ten minutes for security and then he can show them the magic he has in store.

Dot has swapped out her typical character modeled dress for a long sleeved one, with white fuzz trim on the hem and where the sleeves end. Yakko has a pair of deer antlers, and keeps calling himself Rudolph, whoever that is. Yakko says it’s going to be a hit a few years from now.

Wakko just puts on a Santa hat on top of his baseball cap and calls it a day. Dot calls him lazy, and he shrugs, cause that’s a fair assessment.

Christmas Eve is as fun as it is weird, because they don’t have anything anywhere to do to celebrate, but they cut out little paper snowflakes and angels to hang up and then watch and see how much eggnog Wakko can chug at once.

The answer is around 6 gallons, give or take, because Yakko capped him off there, worried.

“You’re  _ such _ a mother hen,” Dot snickers, and Wakko tilts his head to the side with a hiccup.

“Isn’t a male chicken a cock?” 

Yakko laughs.

“Goodnight everybody!”

* * *

They meant to stay up, but they’re kids, so they fall asleep eventually. Wakko, kicking and squirming in bed, because even asleep he can’t stay still, wakes to the sound of frantic whispers.

“Please, just-just for tonight,” Yakko’s voice is quiet and pleading, and when Wakko blinks away the sleep from his eyes he turns into see Yakko, standing in front of Santa, hand gripping Santa’s coat.

And Wakko doesn’t have the time to process the fact that Santa is _ here _ , and  _ real,  _ because Yakko keeps talking.

“Please-just take _ them  _ out, _I’ll_ stay inside. We-just for the night, just let them see the sky again, some snow, it’s been months, _ please _ ,” Wakko can’t see Santa’s face, but he does see the shake of his head. 

Yakko’s voice cracks when he speaks.

“Just  _ one _ ride? They’ll be good-I-,” Yakko pauses. “Okay, maybe they won’t be, you know them, but  _ I’ll _ make sure they are, okay? They-they don’t deserve to be locked in here. It’s Christmas, so just for tonight- _ please. _ ”

There’s something so  _ young  _ about Yakko’s voice, then. Yakko doesn’t sound like a kid, sometimes, and Wakko doesn’t always either, but for him it’s for laughs and for Yakko it’s because he’s tired.

Santa says something, puts a hand on Yakko’s shoulder, and Yakko deflates. Wakko doesn’t even notice that there are new presents under the tree yet, because he’s too busy trying to be quiet enough to hear.

“Just go,” Yakko’s voice is  _ hard _ , and quiet, and cold, and sad. Santa pulls another present from his bag and sets it beneath the tree, and disappears up the chimney.

Wakko watches Yakko tremble in place, for a good two minutes. He counts the seconds in his head, because it feels like they go so slow. Yakko finally stops, takes in a deep breath, and sighs.

“Who needs the guy, anyway,” he hears Yakko repeat, and he pretends to snore as Yakko walks back to bed, and buries his face in the pillow.

It takes a long time for him to get back to sleep.

* * *

Wakko wakes up on Christmas to the smell of peppermint hot cocoa at the crack of dawn-at the very least, it feels like the crack of dawn, because it’s earlier than he’s woken up in a while, but the elation of **_Christmas!!!!_ **has him up in an instant.

There’s a large stack of presents beneath the tree, their names written in pretty cursive of the same handwriting. Dot is all cheer, and he watches her skip towards the kitchen. He shuffles over himself. Yakko sets two cups of hot cocoa on the table, and swirls the top with a large helping of whipped cream, before sprinkling some peppermint on top.

“Merry Christmas, sibs,” he smiles down at them, and it almost makes Wakko forget about the night before. “My gift to you is your menu of choice. The whole day, a la carte menu. Whatever you guys want, I’ll make. So, what’s for breakfast?”

Wakko’s eyes are blown wide. Yakko has  _ no idea _ the can of worms he’s opened with that open ended gift. Or, maybe he does, because he puts on a chef’s coat and hat, and sets up the stove, and a grill, and the oven.

“Bring it on, little brother. But, uh, let me make Dot’s first? Something tells me hers will be a _ biiiiit  _ quicker to make.” Wakko bites his tongue at that request, and Dot prattles off a normal order, because she’s boring.

By the time Yakko is done with Wakko’s order, he’s out of baloney in his slacks.

“I’ll put some more in there later.” He shrugs it off, and Wakko finishes off plate thirty seven with a grin. 

After that, they open up the presents under the tree. Yakko gets some notebooks, a set of fancy pens, and a very expensive looking leather belt. He also gets some books, and a perfect replica of a Shakespearian outfit.

He seems happy, but his smile is strained. Wakko thinks he knows why. Yakko is getting better at hiding it, though, because he almost didn’t notice Yakko was sad at all. There’s still a trace, though.

Wakko wonders if he’ll start forgetting to look for that.

Dot gets the latest model of hair straightener and curler, and a wide breadth of makeup products, as well as a poetry book that she regards with half suspicion and half curiosity. She gets a notebook and pen, too, one with a feather plume sticking out the end. She uses it to brush underneath her chin, giggling.

Wakko gets some chew toys, some that he doesn’t see himself devouring just yet, and a necklace with a chew on too. He puts it on and nibbles on it as he opens up the others. He gets an engineering book, called “Building Without the Math,” and it sounds right up his alley. He also gets a tool kit, which he places in his gag bag for safe keeping. 

The other items are mostly random toys they hadn’t known existed because they haven’t been outside. Wakko uses the propeller of a toy plane as a fan, and then spits in it to see the drool droplets hover.

“Eugh,” Dot growls out, looking away, before she sighs and reaches into her dress pocket. “This leads to my gift.” 

She hands both Yakko and Wakko a set of flash cards on a ring.

“Coupons?” Yakko flips through them, and then snickers.

“You two can do things that...,” Dot struggles for the world. “Make me uncomfortable. Cause you’re  _ boys.” S _ he rolls her eyes. “But you like to do them ‘cause they make you happy, not because they make me annoyed, so these are your passes for that. Valid for a year.”

There are ones like “Can lick me” and “Allowed to not bathe for 2 weeks” that Wakko thinks are specifically targeted at him but hey, why not? Baths are dumb, and he licks to show affection! He sticks the cards in his cap.

Yakko rips one out, hands it to her.

“Thanks,  _ Dottie _ ,” he stresses her least favorite nickname, and she bears her teeth in a very strained smile, snatching the coupon from his hand. 

But Yakko laughs, and soon enough, they all are.

“I’m also going to put away the decorations, no extra charge,” she waves a hand. 

“Sounds good to me,” Wakko hops up, fidgeting with his long sleeves. “I...have to prepare my gift for you. Can you guys wait on the second floor?”

Yakko and Dot share a look, and then nod.

Wakko vanishes up to the third floor, heart in his throat.

He hopes this works.

* * *

He makes them put blindfolds on, pulling them up the stairs. Yakko holds Dot’s hand in one and Wakko’s in the other, helping Dot up as Wakko drags him along.

“What’s with the secrecy, Wakko?” He asks, and Wakko bounces in nervous excitement, tail curled around his leg.

“It’s a surprise,” he insists, and sets them up perfectly, on the mark he planned out. He’d checked, double checked, triple checked. If this doesn’t work he is going to lose it.

He turns off the lights, and pushes his contraption to the back of the room.

“Wakko, I would like to see  _ sometime _ today,” Dot calls, and Wakko fidgets.

“Almost done!” The ice is in, okay, now just push the button.

There’s a series of clanks, and then a loud, grinding sound. Dot and Yakko shiver, and Wakko is glad he used scarves for blindfolds.

There’s a loud  **_FWUMP,_ ** and Wakko bounces on his toes. His feet make indents in the ground.

“Okay, you can look now!”

Dot and Yakko pull down their blindfolds, and Dot gasps.

They’re surrounded by  _ snow. _

There’s a model of a crescent moon up by the ceiling, that acts like a lamp, and glow in the dark stars that glimmer pasted up on the ceiling, with constellations they find familiar. From the machine in the back, snowflakes are shot out, drifting slowly to the ground.

“I, uh, I made snow,” Wakko shrugs, a little self conscious. “Since we can’t go outside, I thought...,” What is there to say?

Dot takes one step into the snow, like she can’t believe it, and squeals when her feet crunches into it, jumping around.

Yakko is still dumbstruck, until Dot comes around and shoves snow down his pants. He jumps up comically high with a shriek, ears brushing the ceiling, and when he falls into the snow it makes a perfect imprint of him.

“Oh, that’s it!” he picks up some snow and throws it at her. Dot throws some back. Wakko runs into the fray, nailing Dot in the face, and she takes her revenge with deadly precision, before sprinting over to him and tackling him into the ground.

“Thank you thank you  _ thank you  _ **_thank you!_ ** ” she shouts so loud that Wakko’s ears ring.

“Merry Christmas?” he tries, and she laughs.

“I  _ knew  _ you were my favorite brother!”

“Hey, I’m offended!” Yakko sprints over, but he’s laughing too, and he drops on top of them, wrapping his arms around them and rolling over in the snow, so they’re on top of him.

He nuzzles Wakko’s nose with his own.

“Nice job, little brother. Think you got us beat with this gift.” Wakko blushes, looking away.

“Wanna make a snowman?” he responds, because  _ you’re welcome  _ seems too formal. 

“Heck yeah!” Dot jumps up and runs over to a large pile of snow.

“Watch your fucking language!” Yakko barks without heat.

“You’re not the boss of me!”

Wakko giggles, and Yakko sits up.

“C’mon, let’s not let her have _ all _ the fun,” Yakko picks him up and sets him off to the side, and Wakko is off like a shot the moment his feet touch the ground.

He thinks about the night before, of Yakko’s words.

_ Who needs the guy, anyway? _

Beneath the fake moonlight, where the snow still sparkles like Wakko remembers, with Dot giggling up a storm as they make the largest snowman they can, with Yakko looking lighter than he has since they got stuck in here, Wakko can’t help but agree.

Who needs Santa anyway?

He can hear the tune from before, in his head, and hums it as they work, smile widening when Dot and Yakko join in.

_ I’ll be home for Christmas _

_ If only in my dreams! _


End file.
